“A sense of worthiness inspires us to be vulnerable, share openly, and persevere. Shame Keeps us small, resentful, and afraid.”
-Brene Brown, Daring Greatly
What prevents us from accomplishing our dreams? Is it our lack of drive and motivation? Is it the constant distractions at our fingertips? Is it something else?
Truth be told, when I ask my colleagues, friends, and peers about their dreams, the most common answers I get are rather mundane:
“I want to finish my law degree and work in a law firm.”
“I want to get into management or maybe start my own company.”
“I don’t know, I’m still trying to figure it all out”
These aren’t dreams. Dreams are the unthinkable; dreams are the realm of crazy and unfathomable. Dreams are flying through the skies, exploring the depths of the seas, and discovering new horizons.
Dreams are what we did all the time as kids, when we’d imagine creative new worlds with fictious characters. We’d bring to life stuffed animals and imaginary friends. We hoped of being astronauts, artists, and superstars.
But something changed as we grew older. The people around us told us to stop dreaming so loudly, stop knocking on the walls of the establishment. You’ll get hurt. Learn to work in the system. Learn to be quiet and small. Don’t overstep your place.
What prevents us from accomplishing our dreams? Simply put, we’ve been taught to be ashamed to dream.
The term to learn here is ‘Shame.’ Shame is what we feel when see our bodies in the mirror. Shame is not being able to go out with our friends because of our financial situation. Shame is our job title at work. Shame is the amount of likes and followers we have on Instagram. Shame is getting laid off.
Shame is often confused with embarrassment, guilt, and humiliation as Brene Brown explains in her book, Daring Greatly. It’s important to understand the difference between these emotions so we can learn how to control for them.
Guilt: “I did a bad thing, I feel bad”
Humiliation: “Someone did something bad to me, they’re a bad person”
Embarrassment: “I did something stupid, I feel bad”
Shame: “I did a bad thing, I am a bad person.”
Shame is particularly powerful because it directly ties negative events in our lives to our self worth. It’s the voice that says, “I got laid off, I’m not worthy of that job.” It destroys our character, it makes us feel lesser. It encourages us to stay small and quiet. In other words, don’t dream too loudly, you’ll get hurt.
It’s seemingly small moments in our lives where shame builds up. For example, Brene Brown tells the story of a young girl who loved to sing, but her sister made fun of her for how her face looked when she sang and she never found the will to sing in front of anyone ever again. Shame tells the girl, “I am an ugly person when I sing and I don’t want to be ugly.”
Unfortunately middle schools seem to be hotbeds for destructive shaming behaviors. Cliques where young girls and boys learn to harass and mock each other to try to seem ‘cool’ or ‘funny’. I’ve seen many examples of this behavior in adults as well, which is disappointing to see a lot of these tendencies permeate far beyond just middle school.
So where does this leave us? How do we learn to overcome shame? The answer is resilience. The unfortunate truth is that we cannot remove shame from the world—people will always advertently or inadvertently put others down for their beliefs. The best we can do is learn how to bounce back. I’ll give you a few tools that I’ve collected to combat shame:
“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.”
C.S Lewis
This is a reminder that all heroes had to face hardships before truly becoming heroes. It’s the difficulty and pain that make life worth living. If you’re feeling down and out from shame, remember that the difficulties forge great stories and adventures.
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
George Bernard Shaw
The second quote is a reminder that if you choose to dream big, people won’t understand, and will try to hurt you for operating outside the norm. But that’s ok, because all the great ones were called crazy. In fact, if someone out there isn’t calling you crazy for your dreams right now, then most likely you’re not dreaming big enough.
“Don’t value yourself for the outcome, value yourself for trying.”
Sunjeev Devulapalli
The third quote is my guiding light. Too often we think, “if I just had the bigger house” or “if I just got the new job or promotion” or “if I just got married” all my problems will go away. In reality when we tie ourselves to outcomes, it’s easy to think lesser of ourselves when those outcomes don’t quickly come to fruition. Stop focusing on the outcome, start valuing yourself by your ability to take risks, to try something new, to put yourself out there, to dare, to hope, to dream.
So, tell me, what are your dreams?
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